Trump administration yanks funding for "Climate-Related Fellowships"

Reduced program is one of several that usually support climate science postdoctoral research but have eliminated or suspended funding opportunities.

Last March, Katie Travis, who was finishing a Ph.D. in atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University, got what seemed like a major boost for her budding career: She had been selected as one of eight fellows for the 2017 class of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) prestigious Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. But the announcement came with an ominous caveat—NOAA program managers did not actually have the money in hand.

This past August, Travis learned that her fellowship offer had been rescinded because of budget cuts. “This was the first grant I wrote myself,” she said. “It was really validating for me to be selected, which is why it’s so crushing that the program ended up the way it did.”

Three other scientists chosen for the fellowships also found their offers revoked. With only four fellows ultimately accepted in 2017, the prestigious program is now funding fewer researchers than it ever has since it was launched in 1991. At least two other postdoctoral fellowship programs in the United States for climate scientists have also been defunded or put on hold, giving young climate scientists fewer options for continuing their careers.

Illustrious Alumni

The program’s annual budget, which has fluctuated around $2 million, “is among the best dollars NOAA spends in terms of return on investment,” said emeritus climate researcher Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.

The Climate and Global Change (CGC) program has built a reputation for preparing scientific leaders, said emeritus climate researcher Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., who served on the program’s steering committee in the 1990s.

Some 90% of the program’s 218 alumni have gone on to academic positions, according to program documents. Alumni include Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York; Heidi Cullen, chief scientist for the nonprofit organization Climate Central in Princeton, N.J.; and Jeff Severinghaus, a Scripps paleoclimatologist recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

“Some 90% of the program’s 218 alumni have gone on to academic positions…”.
Perhaps some of these people in the monkey business field of climate change (a sneaky way of saying global warming) will now understand how the thousands of real scientists have felt over the last few decades as global warming research sucked up the big grants. The false “science” has ruined far, far too many scientific careers. Imagine the $billions wasted that could have gone to the benefit of mankind.

“Greg January 30, 2018 at 1:44 am
This is nothing to do with the swamp, which BTW has not shown the slightest drop in water level since Trump was inaugurated.”

You are mistaking the water level in the septic tank you operate from, for DC’s swamp water level. Septic systems are not allowed to drain into waterways; so if your septic level is climbing, it’s your own fault.
The swamp’s water level is down substantially and may of those alligators are caught in cyclonic drain swirls of their own devising. Many are going down for their third time.

No doubt “return on investment” meant papers supporting an agenda.
What else could it mean? What other reasonable meaning of “return” could there be?
They could claim overall papers but I don’t think that would fly.

I’m in Nth Queensland, Aus. where some bright spark introduced the cane toad, bufo marinus abt 100 years ago. It is spreading relentlessly south and through the northern wetlands to Darwin to the sounds of much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
One would think that the 99% die off in coastal towns in NQ would raise some academic interest to find out why, but a general web search finds nothing. No money, no interest it seems.
[The mods request you clarify if the 99% dieoff (of cane toads we assume) is considered a “good thing” for people, a “bad thing” for cane toads, or a “thing that needs to be funded and investigated by me/my group/my lab of cane toad research associates.” 8<) .mod]

Thank you for taking this seriously. I have spoken of it elsewhere without stirring any interest.
First I must explain where my 99% came from: As a boy in the ’50s whenever it rained we played golf with the toads that collected under street lights. In the morning there were squashed toads all over the roads and moving any iron sheets would disturb them. Today I barely see any from one year to the next. Clearly my 99% is totally unscientific which I accept as bad on a science blog.
IMHO the die off is a good thing for people if for no other reason than they are ugly. Much more importantly it is good for nature – The toads exude poison from glands at the back of the head which kills predators. There are grave concerns that they will badly damage Kakadu National Park.
Possible reasons I have thought of which may have caused this reduction since I was a boy:
1/ The demise of the back yard chook pen. The food, water and hiding places under the nesting boxes made a perfect habitat for them.
2/ Tidier yards generally. People no longer store used building materials and smaller yards and motor mowers mean little long grass.
3/ Better town drainage.
If these things account for the population decline there is no relevance to toad control in the wild.
4/ There are stories that crows flip them on their back and eat the stomach.
5/ I’ve heard researchers say that the snakes are developing smaller heads so they can’t eat the larger, more poisonous specimens.
6/ Is wildlife generally learning to cope and/or developing immunity?
7/ What if there is a virus? That would be cool to know about.
If you see this as a research project you have my best wishes and thanks.

Is nothing sacred?
Cane toads are killing crocodiles in Australia
Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com
July 30, 2008
Australia’s number one pest, the cane toad, devastates freshwater crocodile populations
The cane toad has been a scourge to Australian wildlife for decades. An invasive species, the cane toad competes with local endemic frog species and due to its high toxicity kills any predator who preys on it, including snakes, raptors, lizards, and the carnivorous marsupial, northern quoll. New research has uncovered another victim of the toad. The freshwater crocodile has suffered massive population declines due to consuming the irascible toad.
Australia’s freshwater crocodile is not the brawny reptile of the Crocodile Dundee movies or the ones Steve Irwin wrestled. Those are the larger, more dangerous salt water crocodiles. Freshwater crocodiles, also known as Johnston’s Crocodile, are about half the size of their saltwater cousins and do not pose a threat to humans. They prey largely on fish, amphibians, and birds, yet they are the top predators in their habitat.

“waiting for moderation” is nothing to get worried about. It happens to me a few times a month, and I have many comments here. Now you know, so don’t be disappointed — it happens to the best of us [self aggrandizing not intended].

There’s good money to be made writing grant applications and proposals in the corporate world. $75/hour was a going rate several years ago on a 1099 basis. Probably a lot better than academic pay, though of course you actually have to produce something.

My first job at a major employer (a grocery store) paid 42 cents an hour, or about $16 a week before taxes. By the time I left that job, three years later, I was up to 85 cents an hour. Since I rode my bike to work, the pay seemed good to me. On the other hand, in the late 1950s, gasoline was less than 20 cents per gallon.
In a much later job, I wrote grant applications for a non-profit ballet company of which I was Managing Director. Some of the applications were directed to city governments where the ballet performed, but most were to private firms that could write off contributions to arts organizations. Writing those applications was hard work–some of the hardest in a difficult job–but I always felt better about the money we derived from private sources. Perhaps this young woman could try applying for grants–or even jobs–at places that can use her specific skills.

Now things are starting to get real. The projected budget rise did not occur, the funding floods are receding fast and the spending caps did not melt.
Will these Political Climate Change refugees all move to France?

Since Haaaaaavard is a huge advocate of CAGW, they should fund Travis’ research out of their $37 BILLION Alumni Trust Fund, which, BTW, is probably worth well over $40 Billion by now given the DJIA is up 41% since “evil” Trump’s election (Oh, the irony)….
I hope Travis sad story serves as a cautionary tale to bright young students who have bought into the CAGW sc@m, and are contemplating specializing in Climatology/CAGW research to “help save the world”…
There is no future in the CAGW industry..
ALL the negative externalities of this crazy CAGW ho@x are astounding with $trillions wasted on: EPA compliance costs, increased energy costs, destruction of coal industry, young scientists wasting their precious time on this disconfirmed CAGW hypothesis, higher unemployment from CAGW’s negative effects on US competitiveness, misallocation of land/labor/capital, etc.,..
This Travis story simply shows why it is so important the CAGW hypothesis be officially disconfirmed ASAP.
Bright minds and taxpayers’ money are a terrible things to waste.

If we could find a less harmful place for those “bright” minds than climate alarmism, I’d be fine with taxpayer money going into putting and keeping them there.
Every once in a while, I imagine that, in an alternate universe, Bill Nye stayed where he was and is now a principal engineer in designing Boeing airplanes. That always calls for a drink to stop the shudders…

The science is settled so no further climate reasearch is required. The federal government is deep in debt and does not have any money to be spending on climate science. Any way the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control so there is nothing that we can do to change climate change so trying to do so is just a tofal waste of money that we donot have.

Yup – plus, even if the Eco-Fascist doom stories were 100% real, their “solutions” wouldn’t do a damn thing about it that is measurable. ADAPTATION is the one, and ONLY, way to “deal with” so-called “climate change” or for that matter, ACTUAL climate change (as you described it).

The program’s annual budget, which has fluctuated around $2 million, “is among the best dollars NOAA spends in terms of return on investment,”
Gov practice to deal with budget cuts
1) fund anything you fancy, that you would have a hard time justifying. Most political/useless things.
2) find some human shield who will complain about the cut. Some one people will love: nurses. firefighters, or if those are out of scope, a young pretty girl with sweets dreams of research will do.

“But the announcement came with an ominous caveat”
Fluffy kitten cut down in prime when “This was the first grant I wrote myself,”
Here my dear let me help you out with the ominousity of it all- http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42827333

Leftist equality at its finest.
Pull those above you down to your level. They certainly couldn’t be more deserving or harder working then you.
You know what gets me the most about the gender pay gap? You seem to only really find it in places controlled by leftists – Hollywood, Education, Silicon Valley, ect. Places filled with Conservatives and Blue Collar workers usually don’t even have the ability to pay people on anything other then seniority and job performance.
~¿~

“At least two other postdoctoral fellowship programs in the United States for climate scientists have also been defunded or put on hold, giving young climate scientists fewer options for continuing their careers.”
In other news, promising young phrenology “scientist,” Fila Bump, reports that her grant-seeking quest was unsuccessful. Her academic colleague, Giusta Droppe, a promising homopathy “scientist” blames her failed search for taxpayer slush funds on Trump, “He’s evil and wants children to die,” she screeched in a phone interview last night.
Mass psychosis comes and goes, including in the fake “science research” field.
Maybe the next step will be funding of actual science–like the science that put Americans on the moon. Not the “science” that put Mikey Mann on the cover of Time.

I suppose it’s possible that there are a few actual babies floating in this befouled water, but I’m afraid that the loss of their funding will be well worth the draining of this cesspool. I suggest that all would-be applicants and cancelled grant recipients who are worried about CAGW immediately move to France. M. Macron wants you bad.

Agreed – Bragging about “successes” like Gavin Schmidt and Heidi Cullen is kind of like bragging about being the educational institution that turned out the likes of Benito Mussolini and Patricia Krenwinkel.

Yes, that would be the ultimate – have Gore fund her research, and have her end up a skeptic after she actually looks into the pathetic state of “climate science.” But I’m clearly being too optimistic here – these are probably more drones out to promote the party line, not do any actual “science,” otherwise they would not have chosen this “field.”

President Trump Should Renegotiate the Paris Climate Accord
President Trump should renegotiate the Paris Climate Accord. He should agree anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of all warming climate change. He should agree with the “consensus” scientists. He should agree that the “science” is settled. He should then announce that because the science is settled, 100% of all climate-related research will be redirected towards climate … Continue readinghttps://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/president-trump-should-renegotiate-the-paris-climate-accord/

If you were working on the most important thing ever , and that this was something that would ‘save the planet ‘ would you walk away because you did not get paid or ‘think of the children’ and stay ?
Well the odd thing is that despite this claims often being made for AGW , the reality is ‘no cash no play ‘ , it seems either they do not ‘think of the children ‘ in in fact the claims are BS and therefore simply not important enough to stay around to support without the bags of gold.

“Return on Investment”
I have always imagined that to mean you put in a certain amount of dollars and then get a number of dollars back. So, how many dollars does NOAA get back for each climate fellow they support? If the ROI is truly attractive then the private sector should pick this up no problem. If instead the ROI means “for each fellow we support we are able to milk the taxpayer for more $$$” then good riddance.

This loss of funding is no great loss except to those who would otherwise receive the grants.
If “climate change” causes sea levels to rise, the extra money could be used to build 8-inch high seawalls around low-lying cities over the next century.

“The program’s annual budget, which has fluctuated around $2 million, “is among the best dollars NOAA spends in terms of return on investment,” said emeritus climate researcher Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.”
Ignoring whether or not I (we) think this is a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars, if NOAA really believed that it is the best return on investment, then they should be funding it and cutting something they consider less valuable.

I suppose they’ll just continue to rely on their propaganda campaign using hired schills:https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/bill-nye-does-not-speak-for-us-and-he-does-not-speak-for-science/
I struggle to finish reading the clearly neo-Marxist typical talking points. Attacking science?! My, the nerve of these people.
I’m assuming the onslaught of fear mongering and claiming falsehoods as fact will only increase in both quantity and intensity given the continued efforts to defund their global wealth redistribution scheme.
We’ll see. Thanks Anthony, I appreciate your years of devotion to reason

Look at the important inventions and changes that have taken place in the last hundred years.
In general the really important innovations and improvements have mostly come out of private research and development laboratories. Corporate departments where engineers have to justify their projects to a vice president, submit time lines and status reports, and produce actual physical results that have practical applications. That is where most of the practical research that led to the computers we use, the software that runs in our computers, the passenger airplanes we fly in, the cars we drive, the microwave ovens we cook our food with, the furnaces that heat our homes, the toothpaste and deodorant we use came from. The vast bulk of the research and engineering that makes our products iinovative and better was done in corporate R&D departments.
In contrast most of the government funded research is soft stuff that doesn’t seem to actually mean much in the long run. Things like mating behavior of ardvarks, amazing break throughs in energy production that just need another ten years of funding to make them work “this time for sure”, an endless search for water on Mars, play stuff.
There are some exceptions. Some of it has been useful and has helped answer some interesting questions. But in general the value of publically funded research has been grossly over rated.

Wonderful! Now take an axe to universities. A reduction in size to 5 to 10% of currently should be about right. Replace with trade schools for medicine, engineering, hard science and I suppose if we must, law. Most of the rest is just a hobby.

If all the emeritus dinosaurs who already produced the “settled science” would simply step aside there would be plenty of grant funding for young investigators. They never ever do that, so naturally there will be a shortage of funds, no matter what fellowships are funded or not.

Don’t lobbyists “educate political leaders” too? Do they get government-funded grants and “prestigious fellowships” to train them to lobby?
Just curious.
I’m so very happy she was validated. “It was really validating for me to be selected”. Or was it the money?

I have a simple solution. Since the vast bulk of this research is being funded by US taxpayers, all they need to do to free up much more money is to stop paying for the education and training of foreign nationals.
There are over 800,000 foreigners here on student visas. Meanwhile, every available slot in graduate school programs has 5+ applicants. At top schools like Harvard it can be 30 or 50 applicants per available position.
So, with such a glut of qualified applicants, why dilute the available funding by importing 800,000 foreigners and having them fill so many of these slots and staff so many of these labs when US taxpayers are footing the bill?
If Google wants to relocate to India and hire Indians, there’s nothing to prevent them from doing so. But when US taxpayer dollars are the lion’s share of the funding for these research labs, we should educate and train Americans.

I must be misunderstanding you all here. Are you saying you don’t think some of the brightest minds in science should be able to study the climate at a renowned American institution? Or is it just the funding issue?
Apparently in the first case you are worried about more initiates into the worldwide conspiracy bent on fooling Americans into shelling out dough for research into how humans are affecting the energy balance of our planet through something we can control. What a dumb thing to study.
Where should people get their start studying the climate, the Heartland Institute?.
Ah…funding. If not the government, who will fund the research? Industry? Given the enormous potential for conflict of interest in this field, is that really better than sharing the burden for the sake of AVOIDING corruption in science?
Or what’s your idea, folks? Who should pay for science that is in the public good?
Do you think there is a better way to try to predict climate? Or doesn’t it matter? Should we not study it at all? Should we just wait and see, given the risks?
Perhaps skeptics don’t appreciate the risks or current problems as much simply because they aren’t drawn or exposed to that kind of information. It’s a hypothesis.
I guess many of you think science isn’t a real job. Sponging off the taxpayer, feeding the bureaucracy what it wants to hear.
Sigh. I’m pretty new around here. It’s demoralizing reading the comments above;

Kristi,
Great questions! And it is clear that you are confused. But, it’s not your fault!
You may want to expand your horizons a bit, or maybe speak with a medical professional about Prozac, if reality is depressing you!
Have you not heard? The “science” is “settled!”
Does the US government pour billions of dollars into funding for research into the wetness of water?
Why, in heavens name, do Prof. Mann and his cronies need billions more dollars to “research” the “settled science?”
The vast majority of “climate research” is poured into useless, failed computerized apocalypse fantasies. The “models” are not “models” of reality. They are projections of the apocalyptic, mankind-is-evil-and-killing-the-world assumptions of the IPCC and its government kin.
“…AVOIDING corruption in science?”
Wow, you really haven’t been paying attention!
The climate-of-doom soothsayers are the epitome of corruption in science. Their government funding is likely one of the main drivers of the corruption. For a great primer in the utter degradation of the climate clique, see Climategate Emails.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
If, after learning about the corruption conspiracy to crush dissent from the climate party line, you can still wax pollyanna about “avoiding corruption” in the climate clique, then you might consider doubling your Prozac dose!
Happy to help!
Think positive. The whole scam is crumbling in slow motion. And you get to see it happen live!

You also ignored my reply I made to your comment about America emissions and technology..
You wrote this,
“Kristi Silber January 30, 2018 at 5:37 pm
“Chinese manufacturing has changed the economics of renewable power around the world, making solar generation cost-competitive with electricity from fossil fuels like natural gas and even coal.” (Nat’l Geographic; many many sources will say that China has been investing billions in renewable energy – China’s claim is $360 billion by 2020)
This is what the U.S, should be doing. There is a huge and expanding global market for renewable energy technology, goods and expertise. Shouldn’t we be a leader in this market?”
My reply,
“Kristi Silber barking at America, a nation that actually REDUCED CO2 emissions while China soared.
U.S. Outshines Other Countries in CO2 Emissions Reductions
“According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. carbon dioxide emissions were 2.5 percent less in 2015 than in 2014. In fact, since 2007, when they peaked, carbon dioxide emissions in the United States have been reduced by 12.2 percent. According to the Washington Times, the United States has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions more than virtually any other nation in the world.[i] For comparison, the European Union, which has spent $1.2 trillion on support for wind, solar and bio-energy, increased its carbon dioxide emissions by 0.7 percent in 2015 over 2014 levels. The biggest increase was in Belgium, where carbon dioxide emissions increased by 4.7 percent.[ii]”http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/u-s-outshines-countries-carbon-dioxide-emissions-reductions/
Please take your boring anti America B.S, and stuff it!”https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/29/illustrating-the-failure-of-the-climate-movement-in-one-graph/#comment-2730862

“I must be misunderstanding you all here. Are you saying you don’t think some of the brightest minds in science should be able to study the climate at a renowned American institution? Or is it just the funding issue?”
You are misunderstanding us here. With the pal review and political groupthink around climastrology nowadays much of the scientific grants mechanism is pure political slushfunding rather than objective science and if you don’t go along with the mob they’ll push you out of the inner circle-http://joannenova.com.au/2018/02/jcu-bans-prof-peter-ridd-from-criticizing-scientific-institutions-defiant-he-refuses-fights-on/
Simply put, you’re either with them and their CO2 cult religion or you’re history and there’s no science or scientific debate about it. Their only hurdle is the integrity and resilience of the courageous plus their ridiculous anti-science predictions and prescriptions and it’s the latter that will bring them undone in the long run.

Sunsettommy – your claim that I’m ignoring you is false. I don’t see your comments right away, that’s all.
At the same time, i’m under no obligation to talk to you. Your accusation that I’m anti-American is way over the line, and I will not overlook it.
Kent Clisbe – If they were such great questions, why didn’t you answer any?
Just because I’m new to this site doesn’t mean I’m new to the topic. You vastly underestimate my familiarity with the climate debate. The Climategate argument is so old, it’s become a cliche, and that itself suggests that science is not full of corruption if nothing as sensational has happened since.. There is something awry when millions of people are so primed to believe the worst of scientists that they won’t accept the findings of 8 independent external investigations that found no scientific misconduct. The desire is so strong that it’s easier to believe that all those committees were themselves corrupt than to believe that what they know about the story is misrepresenting the bigger picture.
It is this mass drive to believe there’s a worldwide conspiracy among scientists that I find so completely pervasive, unreasonable, baseless, and abhorrent. It can only be due to the success of the propaganda you’ve been fed for decades. Have you read about that? Have you read any of the original memos about the particulars of the propaganda schemes outlining the message and the ways to convey it? It’s chilling how effective it’s been.
(Example: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf, 1998 API memo in appendix)
If you really want to look into corruption, don’t restrict your search to climate scientists who support AGW theory..

“The Climategate argument is so old, it’s become a cliche, and that itself suggests that science is not full of corruption if nothing as sensational has happened since.”
You are new around here aren’t you? The Climategate emails were simply the start of dragging these political séance spruikers out from behind their closed doors and into the sunlight after hiding their data for so long, only to find their dog ate the homework. Then their palsy IPCC was unearthed hiding behind Green gray literature and their unscientific ramblings and slowly but surely their doomsday predictions fell apart as the same time they morphed the company line from CAGW to climate change, climate disruption, extreme weather, etc. What’s next? Inclement weather!
What a sick joke they’ve all become to rational scientific minds with their never ending doomsday list-http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Kristi, it is clear you can’t address my counterpoints I made against your claims.
American emissions dropped while China soared. You didn’t answer it.
Pointed out the IPCC PER DECADE warming trend predictive failures. You didn’t answer it.
Pointed out that Climategate exposed the unethical and even possibly criminal behavior of a small group of overtly warmist scientists. You complain that it is an old argument, meaning you can’t refute it. You never read it, even ignored a comment that mentions the Harry files, you ignored that too.
In other words, you have ZERO counterpoints to offer here. You are not here to have an honest debate, since you don’t provide any counterpoints.
You come back with propaganda claims without merit and you are being a stridently dishonest person who keeps ignoring other peoples counterpoints.
Your irrational big oil conspiracy argument is stupid as hell. No laws broken, No one was prevented from publishing science research. They publish openly, without prejudice. No free speech violations.
You are a one trick pony who is quickly becoming pegged as a warmist loon..

Ah, the Ridd case. Sounds to me like he went against university policy. He published outside it, presumably without their consent. He went to the media not just to suggest certain aspects of the research that could be improved, but to publicly assert that scientific institutions are UNTRUSTWORTHY. Can you imagine an employee in the public sector going to the TV news to say his CEO is a sociopath would get off scott-free?
‘Professor Ridd told Sky News: “The basic problem is that we can no longer trust the scientific ­organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, even things like the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.”’
‘He said a lot of the science was not properly checked, tested or replicated and “this is a great shame because we really need to be able to trust our scientific institutions and the fact is I do not think we can any more”’
(The Australian)
This is a very serious allegation, one that should not be made in the public sphere without hard evidence of misconduct or systematic sloppiness. Undermining the public’s faith in the scientific community may be Ridd’s right in general, but that doesn’t give him the right to disregard his employer’s policies in order to do it, without facing the consequences.
The fact that he published with a think tank known for pushing an agenda and funded by oil interests, in a book by a veritable Who’s Who in vocal castigators of the climate change consensus, only calls into question Ridd’s ability to conduct or critique science without bias.

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